Ed Brenegar spends most days as leadership guide and organizational change consultant. He consultants, teaches, coaches, writes and speaks about leadership, gratitude, stewardship and the social/organizational dynamics of organizations. He does this through his Circle of Impact Guide system. He’s a busy guy – along with his blog – Leading Questions (which is a nominee for Best Leadership Blog of 2010 – Ed writes a weekly leadership column for Weekly Leader.
The Common Ground of Shared Responsibility
by Ed Brenegar (posted 11/05/10)
Creating an effective business structure is a very difficult proposition. I am not talking about a business or marketing plan. I referring to how a business is structured so that it functions well.
As you know, I look at this challenge through the lens of the Circle of Impact. My sense is that we need to foster alignment between the three dimensions of leadership – Ideas, Relationships and Structure. We do this by focusing on the conditions that create effective Communication, Collaboration and Coordination.
For me this is a baseline from which all organizations need to begin. What happens beyond that is a change in the function of each of the dimensions.
Communication ceases to be a major problem; your message gets out; and work related issues seemed to be less intractable.
Collaboration grows, new ideas emerge from the improvement of relationships, and the organization needs to change to accomodate a higher level of engagement and initiative by people.
Coordination, though, lags in improvement across departments, remote sites, and programs. The reason is that the system of organizaiton is always the last to change. It has the highest resistance to adapting to changing circumstances. As a result, the optimism that initially rose as communication and collaboration grew also begins to lag.
After a few months or years, a growing impression of either being at a plateau or in decline begins to be discussed openly. Whether rightly or wrongly, the perception that the organization has reached a Transition Point begins to take hold.
In reflection, we can see that the easiest things to change, did. New, fresh, inspiring ideas infused new confidence and motivation in people, impacting how they communicated and collaborated together. This is what is happening in many organizations.
The jump from one inspiring idea to the next ends up artificially propping up the emotional commitment of people to the company and their relationships together.This is not sustainable.
The resistance of the organization’s structure to change remains the primary obstacle to a well functioning, fully aligned organization.
The distance and disconnect that employees have from the mission and outcome of the business is the most basic identifying mark of a structure out of alignment. Indifference that people have to their workplace grows. The desire to be left alone to do their job so they can get on to what really matters in their life becomes the defacto attitude of the workforce. In effect, there is no emotional access point for them to invest their whole selves in the work they do.
When this scenario is widely experienced in a company, inspiring ideas and motivational team building programs don’t have a lasting impact. The problem is a structural or systems one. Issues of communication and collaboration are symptoms of the problem.
Assumptions about the Product of an Effective Organizational Structure
As I analyze organizations during various projects, I’m looking for various intangilbes that matter. Let’s call them assumptions about what an organizational system should produce.
1. Initiative by employees measured by higher rates of engagement and contribution.
2. Interaction by employees that is open and collaborative and that transcends organizational barriers to achieve higher levels of efficiency and impact.
3. Impact awareness by employees who can express their own contribution to the organization’s impact as a change that is a difference that matters.
These assumptions are difficult to measure, yet relatively easy to see.
Their performance is more evident when they are missing. People not taking initiative. When there is little interaction between people from different parts of the organization. When employees show little appreciation for the organization’s mission and impact.
The question that many of us then have is how to do we redesign our organizational structures so that we realize a higher level of initiative, interaction and impact.
One way to address this issue is through strategic organizational redesign to creates an environment of Shared Responsibility.
Read the rest of Ed’s extensive and insightful post here.
Ed covers a lot of ground in this post, which makes it hard to comment! I’ll say three specific things worthy of your consideration, regardless of your leadership position . . .
1. Read the rest of the post for some great stuff about shared responsibility (of course).
2. Read this bolded statement from above everyday:
The resistance of the organization’s structure to change remains the primary obstacle to a well functioning, fully aligned organization.
Then ask yourself this question: What change will make us a more effective, highly functioning organization, and what is the next step to creating that change?
(in the spirit of this post, ask yourself that question, and engage your organization in doing the same.)
3. Remember that leaders at all levels can impact organizational structure. Start where you live with what is in your control.
There is much more to mine here, but I will leave those thoughts to you and the comments below.
To vote for Ed’s great blog or any of our other nominees for the Best Leadership Blog of 2010, go here!
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